The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon Part 43

"Stop it, Dad---stop it!" Tad called sternly.

Then, as nothing else promised to avail, Tad rushed once more into the fray.

Dad was weakening from his own enormous expenditure of strength.

"Don't go any farther, Dad," Tad coaxed, catching one of Nance's arm and holding on.

"I guess I have about given the fellow what he needed," admitted the guide, rising.

As he stood above the Indian, Dad saw that the man did not move.

"I hope you didn't kill him, Dad," Tad went on swiftly.

"Why?" asked Jim Nance curiously.

"I don't like killings," returned Tad briefly. He bent over the Indian, finding that the latter had been only knocked out.

"We'd better take the redskin back to camp, hadn't we?" queried Tad, and Jim silently helped. In camp, the Indian was bound hand and foot. The camp fire was lighted and Tad went to work to resuscitate the red man.

At last the camp's prisoner was revived.

"Now, let's ask him about the thieveries that have been going on,"

suggested Ned Rector.

"Humph!" grinned Dad. "If you think you can make an Indian talk when he has been caught red-handed, then you try it."

Not a word would the Indian say. He even refused to look at his questioners, but lay on the ground, stolidly indifferent.

"He's a prowling Navajo," explained Nance. "You may be sure this is the fellow, Brown's 'spirit,' behind all our troubles. He's the chap who stole Brown's rifle, who raided this camp, who set the lion free and who poisoned my dogs---so they wouldn't give warning."

"But why should he want to turn the lion loose?" Tad wanted to know.

"Because the Navajo Indians hold the mountain lion as sacred. The Navajo believes that his ancestors' spirits have taken refuge in the bodies of the mountain lions."

"I believe there must be a strong strain of mountain lion in this fellow, by the way he fought me," grimaced Tad.

"What shall we do with this redskin?" Chunky asked. "Shall we give him a big thrashing, or make him run the gauntlet?"

"Neither, I guess," replied Jim Nance, who had cooled down. "The wisest thing will be for us to take him straight to the Indian Agency.

Uncle Sam pays agents to take care of Indian problems."

It was late that afternoon when the boys and their poisoner arrived at the Agency.

"I'll talk to him," said the agent, after he had ordered that the Indian be taken to a room inside.

An hour later the agent came out.

"The Navajo confesses to all the things you charge against him,"

announced the government official. "I thought I could make him talk.

The redskin justifies himself by saying that your party made an effort to kill Navajo ancestors at wholesale."

"Humph!" grunted Jim Nance.

"What happens to the Navajo?" Walter asked curiously.

"He'll be kept within bounds after this," replied the agent. "For a starter he will be locked up for three months. Some other Navajos were out, but we got them all back except this one. Going back into the Canyon?"

Indeed they were. Late that afternoon the Pony Rider Boys began their journey of one hundred miles to the lower end of the Canyon.

From that latter point they were to go on into still newer fields of exploration, in search of new thrills, and were far more certain than they realized at that time of experiencing other adventures that should put all past happenings in the shade.

For the time being, however, we have gone as far as possible with the lads. We shall next meet them in the following volume of this series, which is published under the t.i.tle, "_The Pony Rider Boys With The Texas Rangers; Or, On the Trail of the Border Bandits_."

A rare treat lies just ahead for the reader of this new narrative, in which acquaintance will also be made with one of the most famous bodies of police in all the world, the Texas Rangers.

THE END